Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Medically inexplicable healing

I’m currently wading through Craig Keener’s massive two volume work “Miracles.” The book relays healing anecdote after healing anecdote. Frankly it is largely boring, incredibly tedious reading, and should have been about a quarter of the size.

So Graham is complaining that Keener provides too much evidence?

Keener tells us that his main thesis is to defend the claim that people all over the globe – past and present – have claimed to be eyewitnesses to miraculous events, and thus New Testament claims can’t be dismissed as later legends, but rather they were genuine claims by eyewitnesses. I honestly don’t know who Keener is aiming at here because I have never met a single person – past or present, in real life or in literature – who doesn’t already know that many people past and present make claims concerning supposed miraculous events they witnessed. Such miracle claims abound in practically every culture. No-one seriously disputes that. I suspect Keener is being rather disingenuous with us, telling us hundreds and hundreds of miracle stories in the hope that we too begin to believe in miracles, or if we already believe then he means to affirm our belief with all these stories. I simply do not believe him when he tells us that the point of his book is the far more modest claim that people claim to have witnessed miracles.

What's wrong with Keener providing reams of evidence so that "we too begin to believe in miracles, or if we already believe then he means to affirm our belief with all these stories"? Is that a nefarious agenda?

Keener frequently refers to some instance of recovery as “medically inexplicable.” This is a common emphasis in the miracle-touting literature. This stress on medical inexplicability fits well with the definition of miracle provided by Webster’s New Universal Encyclopedia: “an event that cannot be explained by the known laws of nature and is therefore attributed to divine intervention.” Now, admittedly Keener is at pains to stress that he does not regard all the cases he reports as miraculous, but he does seem to strongly imply that many – even most – of his cases are best explained in these terms. In fact, it seems to me that the main reason Keener presents hundreds of such claims, regardless of their quality (and most are little more than folk tales or hearsay) is to allow him to say something like “sure, some of these claims might be false but there so many of them such that they can’t all be false, and therefore some must be due to supernatural agency.” As part of his cumulative case Keener presents these medically inexplicable recoveries. But how significant is it that some recovery is “medically inexplicable?”

i) The reason apologists cite medical miracles is to counter the common objection that healings are subjective or psychosomatic. Self-diagnosis. The placebo effect. By contrast, a professional diagnosis and prognosis meets a higher standard of verification. Why would any reasonable person complain about that?

ii) Also, the sheer quantity of reported events is often germane to warranted belief that such events occur. Repeated sightings of something by independent observers is prima facie evidence that it exists. Yes, quality matters, too, but so does quantity.

That some healing or other is “medically inexplicable” is a woefully inadequate – albeit very common – reason for positing divine intervention. It relies not on any positive evidence but rather on the mere lack of an explanation. This amounts to little more than an argument from ignorance. It is not legitimate to argue: “Doctors cannot explain why Bob’s tumour has disappeared, therefore the tumour was taken away by God.” That’s classic god of the gaps reasoning.

i) And Graham resorts to naturalism of the gaps reasoning.

ii) There's usually more to it than just "he was sick>now he's well>therefore God". Often there's the matter of timing: suddenly healing after prayer.

iii) If you rule out naturalistic explanations because the evidence runs counter to what is naturally expected in that case, then by process of elimination that leaves a supernatural cause as the remaining explanation. There's nothing fallacious about that inference. You don't always need positive evidence for something. If there's a finite set of possible explanations, and you rule out all but one kind of explanation, then that yields the remaining option by default. That's common reasoning. If I remember that a bought a pocket knife on Thursday or Friday, but don't remember which day, and then remember that I could not have purchased the knife on Friday, that leaves Thursday, even if I don't specifically remember buying the knife on Thursday.

Or suppose I misplace my car keys. I drove to the office, then when I went back to the car to drive home, the keys weren't in my pocket. But I know I had to have them to drive to the office. That's the last time I know I had them. And there are only so many places I could have lost them between the car and my office. In the parking lot. In the hallway. In the office. In the restroom. If I remember every place I went, and I check all but one place, then the last place I check is where I'll find them.

I don't always need direct evidence for something. Sometimes indirect evidence can be just as good or better if I'm able to systematically rule out the alternatives.

iv) Is Graham's objection that this is a probable inference rather than a certain inference? But inductive logic is essential to functioning in the real world.

There are lots of good potential reasons why some recovery might be “medically inexplicable.” For instance, perhaps a patient was misdiagnosed with Serious Disease A when she in fact only had Temporary Disease B. That she recovered is inexplicable as long as we think she suffered Serious Disease A, but of course she might not have. Alternatively, a doctor might well be mistaken about some condition or other. Doctors, after all, do not know everything about every disease. They can also make mistakes, thinking a disease was incurable when it in fact isn’t. Such might be very common in impoverished countries with little or no decent healthcare. Doctors might well lack the equipment for making a sound diagnosis. It is noteworthy that most of the healing claims Keener relates originate in such countries. A doctor might also use the language of “miracle” simply to mean “highly unusual,” rather than “act of God.” Moreover, a patient might misunderstand or misreport what his doctor tells him about his condition and chances of recovery, and in many cases it is the patient – not the doctor – who reports the recovery as “medically inexplicable.” Lastly, even modern medicine is far from omniscient. There are many things we do not know, such as why certain diseases behave the way they do. Remember that what was “medically inexplicable” 400 years ago is routine to us, and the same will likely be the case 400 years from now.

But a medically inexplicable recovery is based on positive evidence: a professional diagnosis and prognosis. Graham isn't offering any positive counterevidence. He's just toying with hypotheticals. But that's not evidence to the contrary. If it's a choice between evidence and hypotheticals, shouldn't evidence enjoy priority?

By his logic, why bother seeking medical treatment in the first place since there's always the abstract possibility of misdiagnosis. The doctor might be wrong! But how is that a rational attitude? Infallibility is not the standard in decision-making. We should operate with the best available evidence. The fact that we might be mistaken doesn't mean we should ignore the evidence, does it?

There's no evidence that the patient was misdiagnosed. There's no evidence that his recovery will be medically explicable 400 years from now. Graham is comparing evidence to fact-free hypotheticals, as if fact-free hypothetical cancels out evidence.

In another post, Graham says:

What all this means is that eyewitness testimony – as important as it can be – should be examined thoroughly, preferably by someone who was not present at the event in question. With claims of miraculous healing we are right to require additional evidence such as medical histories and expert opinion, rather than simply believing the testimony of an eyewitness, who could be – and in many cases is – in error about what exactly they witnessed or remember happening.

But now he's moving the goalpost. He doesn't stick to his own standards. In the 2016 post he appeals to medical verification, but in the 2018 post he labors to debunk medical verification.

In the same article he talks about errors of perception, memory, interpretation, &c. But of course that's hardly unique to reported miracles. That's true for testimonial evidence generally. Does he apply the same skepticism to reported natural or ordinary events?

In another post he says:

I want to focus here on divine healings. The conclusion I came to was this: God doesn’t seem to answer prayers for healing, or if he does it’s incredibly rare and undetectable. Let me make one thing completely clear from the outset: I’m not saying God can’t heal. God – being omnipotent – can strike us down or heal us at will. I’m simply making an empirical observation: God does not seem to heal. Or, as I’ve said, if God does heal he does it in such a way as to be virtually undetectable.

It's hard to see how long someone with that viewpoint can remain a Christian. He seems to be backing out of the Christian faith. If he ceases to believe in the efficacy of petitionary or intercessory prayer at all, then how will he continue to believe in the Bible or an interventionist God?

In another post, he says:

a sceptical Christian is open to a miracle or divine healing, but conscious of the need to test claims as rigorously as possible, given the sheer number of false and fraudulent claims that have been made in recent years.

i) A basic problem is that Graham is a disillusioned charismatic, so the pendulum has swung from unreflective charismatic to reflexive skeptic. But both extremes are unreasonable.

ii) I'd like to make a general observation. If the question is whether miracles ever happen, then it makes sense to pick some really strong examples. But once we establish the occurrence of miracles, then we don't need to hold every reported miracle to the same rigorous test. That doesn't mean we should be credulous, but it doesn't require super-duper evidence to warrant belief in a reported miracle, once it's been established that this kind of thing happens. Ordinary evidence will suffice.

To take an example, suppose there's a reported sighting of an Irish Elk. But since the Irish Elk is an Ice Age animal that reputedly went extinct about 11,000 years ago, we might well be skeptical about a reported sighting, and demand strong evidence. A "confirmed" sighting. Say, capturing an Irish Elk alive. Comparing the living specimen to fossils. If, however, we establish that Irish Elk survived, then we don't' require the rigorous evidence for subsequent reports–any more than we require rigorous evidence for sightings of any extant species.

2 comments:

"There are lots of good potential reasons why some recovery might be 'medically inexplicable.' For instance, perhaps a patient was misdiagnosed with Serious Disease A when she in fact only had Temporary Disease B. That she recovered is inexplicable as long as we think she suffered Serious Disease A, but of course she might not have."

1. I completely agree with Steve Hays' main points. Graham is just talking about hypotheticals. Keener talks about real cases.

2. It depends on the specific disease we're talking about. Sure, anyone can temporarily have a cold, then recover from it. That's no surprise.

3. However, one can't really say the same about neurodegenerative diseases, to take a broad category of examples.

"Alternatively, a doctor might well be mistaken about some condition or other. Doctors, after all, do not know everything about every disease. They can also make mistakes, thinking a disease was incurable when it in fact isn’t."

1. In the United States, and presumably other developed nations like the United Kingdom and W. European nations, it's often not just one doctor diagnosing a particular disease. Rather, there's a lot of redundancy in the system.

Take a cancer diagnosis. Suppose a family physician (GP) diagnoses a patient with cancer. Then the family physician refers the patient to an oncologist. The oncologist then diagnoses the patient with cancer. However, the patient wants a second opinion, which oncologists often recommend in any case, not because oncologists doubt their own diagnosis, but because they know it usually helps patients acquire greater certainty. Then the second oncologist diagnoses the patient with the same cancer. And of course throughout this process at least one (if not more) pathologist is involved who is looking at the biopsy, blood results, and so on. Not to mention radiologists for imaging (e.g. chest x-rays, CTs, MRIs) and surgeons because most solid cancers require surgical intervention at one point or another.

2. Also, it depends on the patient and the disease. Some patients with certain diseases don't require more than one physician to make a diagnosis since it's obvious. Other diseases (like most cancers, as above) ideally need a multidisciplinary team involved.

"Such might be very common in impoverished countries with little or no decent healthcare. Doctors might well lack the equipment for making a sound diagnosis. It is noteworthy that most of the healing claims Keener relates originate in such countries."

1. Again, it depends on the disease we're talking about. Some diseases are obvious. Some diseases are quite reliably made with nothing more than a good history and physical examination. And, of course, one usually doesn't need a barrage of tests and imaging to diagnose when someone is dying from a snakebite or is dead, which I believe is an example Keener cites in his book if I recall correctly.

2. Also, don't underestimate physicians "in impoverished countries with little or no decent healthcare". These physicians often have far more familiarity with their local diseases than do physicians trained in developed nations. Take tropical diseases like malaria or ebola. These physicians might not have the advanced medical technology and sophisticated understanding of a disease's pathophysiological processes like physicians in developed nations do, but they have no problem diagnosing malaria or ebola when they see it. Indeed, it's often not so much the diagnostic process as it is the treatment that's the issue with physicians in developing nations.

3. What's more, because there's often a deficiency in treatment in developing nations, diseases tend to present much later in their development than we would see in a nation like the United States. In the US, as soon as we have a hint of say diabetes or congestive heart failure or whatever other disease emerging, we want to immediately begin to treat it. However, in developing nations, that's often not possible, so these diseases are left to develop and thus present at much later stages so that these diseases are much more obvious to physicians. The patient has much more obvious physical signs and symptoms of the disease because the disease is allowed to progress without treatment.

"Moreover, a patient might misunderstand or misreport what his doctor tells him about his condition and chances of recovery, and in many cases it is the patient – not the doctor – who reports the recovery as 'medically inexplicable.'"

Of course, there are some claimed miracles that have medical documentation from physicians:

1. Like the Don Vanderhoof case which has confirmation from two neurologists in developed nations - both of whom anyone can presumably still contact today if they have any questions or doubts.

2. Likewise, British physician Dr. Rex Gardner wrote an entire book titled Healing Miracles: A Doctor Investigates. I cite two examples from his book on my weblog.

3. Dr. Edward Goljan is a U.S. trained pathologist. Dr. Goljan has also taught generations of medical students and written questions for the United States Medical Licensing Examinations. He claims he was healed of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) after a minister prayed with him. You may not agree that he was miraculously healed by prayer, but you can't deny he doesn't understand disease as a pathologist, nor that he doesn't have medical expertise, and so on. You'd have to start by arguing the medical science with him if you doubt his claim.